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Stiffness makes us look old…is there a choice?

As I was flying out to Montana this week, and had some time in airports, I enjoyed watching people walking and moving…it is a great study in “stiffness” and if they are young or old.  The funny thing I realized in my very limited research on this subject is that if you are stiff in your joints it doesn’t make any difference what your chronological age is… you look “old”!  It is that “weight of the world” type of movement that looks like you are burdened with each step because your fluidity of joint movement isn’t there.

However, I also noticed a very curious thing; those who were walking slowly and being aware of their surroundings appeared much more at ease in their walking stride…and on the other side of that observation; those who had a great urgency and were rushing to get somewhere had locked their eyes,  jutted their chin forward, pushed down and stiffened their legs and joints and appeared very tense. They even had a scowl on their faces as they tightened the facial muscles and jaw.

So, yes there is definitely a “psychophysical” relationship in how we think and how we move, and if we think we are “old” we may stiffen up for no reason except that is what society says we must do. We have a “choice”, there is that word, the experience that can free us from being what we think we have to be or do.

Come experience this choice – stiffness or fluidity  – your time to be all you can be and loving life!

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What is Alexander Yoga?

MelindaThe Alexander Technique is a method of learning how you move when you do anything that involves “moving” (i.e walking, running, sitting, lifting, eating, knitting, golfing, swimming, sweeping and on and on…).  You learn where you are over tensing or over contracting your muscles and therefore your joints and creating stiffness and pain.  However, we build habits over our lifetimes and even though we have been “over tensing” (I think of the steering wheel or the broom, or the coffee cup!); we may not know it because it has been come habitual and not in our sensory awareness.  And now we have stiffness, pain and sometimes arthritis in our wrists, fingers, spine and we don’t relate it back to our “over tensing” of our muscles and our joints.

When we learn the Alexander Technique princpals of how to bring our habits into our sensory awareness and change them; we create much more ease in our arms, wrists, spine, hips, neck and shoulders, etc.  We learn we can drive without over gripping the steering wheel, pick up a cup without grabbing it with a death grip and still get the task accomplished! And we keep arthritis and chronic pain away!

Yoga is movement also, so with Alexander Yoga, you get both.  The principles of the Alexander Technique come behind the yoga movements or postures and voila, a much deeper awareness and much more flexibility and strength is available.  You don’t hurt yourself because you learn about YOU!!  Your awareness of yourself is carried out into your everyday activities and is more sustainable and long term because it is an investment and education in YOU!

Come try a class this summer; Mondays 5:30 pm; Wednesday mornings 11 am (July 15-August 28) – first class is free for new students.

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New York City and Bodies

I just returned from NYC, studying with some of my colleagues and as I walked around the city I noticed the diversity in bodies and movement. There is this beautiful commingling of emotions, postures, clothing and identification of persona. I have to wonder what the stories are for all these lovely folks who all seem to be going somewhere, most with a sense of urgency in their body to “get there”.

The posture and tensing that I see is so evident because of wanting to “get there”, I feel myself emerging into the same energy, and I have to remind myself to soften, calm, to bring my awareness to my body, my feet on the ground, the space above my head. Something changes in my sensual awareness; I start to see, hear, and smell with a different more enhanced experience. Before I started to notice myself in the space I was in and the space around me; I felt pulled or separate from my sensations, all because I was wanted to get ahead of myself to “get there”. I am only driven by the self-induced “urgency” to be somewhere other than where I am; and, I am not in the process of enjoying this incredible city and the people who are here in the space with me. Does the awareness of my body expand my attention to really see and be a part of this fabulous city? Do I have more ease in my head, neck and shoulders, less tightening in my back and knees and more oxygen is coming in because I am breathing!

Try it yourself, next time you are in the grocery store, instead of being pulled by the “urgency” to get to the butter, cheese, lettuce. Be with yourself in the present of just walking, taking in the smells, the sights and the sounds that surround you, your feet on the floor, the space above your head. Does something change, do your muscles ease and calm along with your thoughts? How long can you be “present”…before the “urgency” creeps back in and your shoulders ride up to your ears…it is challenging! Have fun!

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